Huge SF Festival and EuroConference in June

The 7th Atjaro (Gateway) Festival will be held in Budapest 9-11 June, 2006. This early summer festival pertains to literature, movies, television series and gaming. Movies and Hungarian fan films that haven’t been shown anywhere before will be presented to the visitors.

The Special Guest stars are actress MIRA FURLAN from Lost and Babylon 5 and actor ADRIAN PAUL from Highlander and Tracker. The organizers also invited one of the supporting actors from the Star Wars saga GERALD HOME and GARRICK HAGON who has played in Tim Burton’s Batman and in Mission Impossible.

The Atjaro (Gateway) Festival has invited some of the best authors from the European science fiction and fantasy scene. British writer and screenwriter IAN WATSON, Spanish writer and literary translator LUISA MARÍA GARCIA VELASCO, Italian author ROBERTO QUAGLIA and British author HARRY HARRISON, Grand Master of European Science Fiction, as well as editors from European literary and movie magazines.

Attendees will have the chance see the 90-minute Star Wars fan film The Dark Side: Part 2, and numerous movies that have not yet been shown in Hungarian theaters. The first prize winner of the Brussels Science Fiction Festival (BIFFF), the Hungarian short film, The 639th Doll by András György Dési and Gábor Móray will be shown.

The convention has officially received the EuroConference title at the European Science Fiction Society’s (ESFS) annual meeting in Kiev. There will be a special program section in English for SF professional persons (publishers, authors and editors) about European and Central-European SF literature and fandom.

The convention expects to entertain numerous fans and visitors from the neighboring countries as well, so a part of these programs will be enjoyable in English (by dubbing and subtitling) too.

The official website of the convention: http://fesztival.sfportal.hu

Hungarian Short Films Awarded Prizes

A Hungarian science fiction short has won top awards at film festivals in Amsterdam and Nashville, the Hungarian Film Union announced on Tuesday.

“Doll Nr. 639”, directed by György András Dési and Gábor Móray, was awarded the Black Tulip prize for best short at the 22nd Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival (AFFF), held on April 19-26. It was also awarded the prize for best short film at the Nashville Film Festival, held on April 20-26, the statement said.

The film, which stars Tünde Murányi and Péter Scherer, was recently awarded the main prize at the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Films, and it has already been invited to another festival in Brussels.

The Film Union also reported that Attila Szász has received the best director title for his short film “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t” at the Newport Beach Film Festival in California, held on April 20-30. The festival, in its seventh year, boasted 350 films in competition, including nearly 200 shorts.

The prize was the third awarded to “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t”: it received the best short award in Ojai, California, and the jury’s special prize in Houston last year. The film will show next at a festival in Indianapolis, then in Winnipeg, Canada.

(Source: MTI)

Major changes in the Hungarian publishing market

During the last months there was important changes around the Hungarian SF publishers. Delta Vision which prints mainly fantasy novels and distributes collectible cards bought up one of the oldest SF publisher, Cherubion (founded in 1991 by István Nemes). Inomi, the publisher of the most successful fantasy novel series MAGUS and science-fiction series Mysterious Universe quit from publishing business. The MAGUS novels now are published by Tuan, the Mysterious Universe series are printed by Graal Books.